Bethany Shepherd (1989) discovered her voice accidentally while dancing in musicals in her hometown of Armidale, Australia. She decided to further her musical education by pursuing a Bachelor of Music in Performance at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music. After discovering a passion for historically informed performance practices, she moved to the Netherlands in 2013 to pursue a Masters in Early Music at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.
In addition to the NKK, Bethany sings with many Dutch ensembles, including the Groot Omroepkoor and the Dutch Bach Society. During her studies at the Royal Conservatory, she and friends created the ensemble Le Voci delle Grazie, specialized in female early Italian Baroque music. With this group she performed at early music festivals throughout Europe and participated in the prestigious EEEMERGING+ program to support young talented early music ensembles.
As a soloist, Bethany has sung oratorio repertoire by composers such as Bach, Handel, Vivaldi and Graun. On the opera stage she sang the roles of La Fée (Cendrillon, Massenet), Belinda (Dido and Aeneas, Purcell) and Norina (Don Pasquale, Donizetti).
Besides singing, Bethany enjoys dancing, reading and baking – both cooking and eating! She has a very spoiled cat.
